You can look but you can't touch

Back in the 32-bit era, the world's biggest handheld was unquestionably the Game Boy, and its updated variant, the Game Boy Color. Any title which was big on domestic systems invariably received a scaled-down port on Nintendo's all-conquering mobile console, with varying degrees of success.

Capcom was no stranger to this process, but what could arguably have been its biggest GBC project - a port of Resident Evil by HotGen - was eventually cancelled. Interestingly, the same fate would befall the handheld version of Dino Crisis, a PlayStation release which was thematically very similar to Resident Evil but switched zombies for dinosaurs.

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What's even more interesting is that Capcom had not one but two versions of the game in development for the GBC. Little solid information remains online, but Unseen 64 has managed to piece together some basic details.

It would appear that Capcom commissioned UK studio M4 Ltd - which also created 2001's Resident Evil Gaiden - to produce a top-down interpretation of Dino Crisis which IGN reported on in 2000 but never saw the light of day. Resident Evil Gaiden was also a top-down title, and there's a slight chance that M4 used some elements of its unreleased Dino Crisis in that particular title.

The other GBC Dino Crisis was apparently in production at second UK firm called Fluid Studios. The screenshot you seen above is supposedly taken from this version, although the source is unknown. According to reports, the title would contain 7 maps with 100 different rooms, as well as five different dinosaur enemies. It would also contain four characters seen in the PlayStation version (Regina, Rick, Gail and Dr Kirk), hinting that it was a similar project in scope to the cancelled GBC Resident Evil.

As neither M4 or Fluid Studios exist today, tracking down hard evidence on either game is tricky. What's surprising is that Capcom would choose to cancel both Dino Crisis projects. Would you have liked to have played a scaled-down version of the survival horror classic on your GBC? Or do you think it would have been impossible to fully recreate the tension on such humble hardware? Let us know by posting a comment below.

[source unseen64.net]